Organic Gardening Newsletter #18
Thanks to Jimi Logsdon for a great discussion
of all aspects of home gardening, especially chickens. It sure was nice having cool weather, and it looks like it will
be even cooler today.
This afternoon at 1:30 at the Grange, I will be presenting on
maintaining your summer plantings, planning for your fall garden, and of course weeding with the wheel hoe. I will bring a
wheel hoe and attachments, a stake pounder, and the nifty little sharpener I use. I plan to have lots of time for questions.
Next
Sunday June 14, we have a field trip to Bruce Balgooyen's farm at Riparia. I will be sending directions via e-mail
soon. You basically take Normal Street beyond Normal to the extreme southern end. Bruce is talking about plant support structures,
and whatever else occurs to him, which could be just about anything. Should be good.
This morning,
I went out into my garden and pulled up a vigorous tomato plant. It has some yellowing on some of the lower leaves, and
I rouged it to prevent this probable disease from spreading. I looked up tomato diseases on the UC Davis Extension website,
and printed out 3 pages of possible diseases. Looking at the photos and descriptions, I suspect it is powdery mildew or bacterial
canker. I will bring it to class this morning. Perhaps my overhead watering has become a problem. I was planning to switch
to drip tape soon. Maybe now is the time.
Please e-mail your suggestions for sharing excess from
the garden. I have beets and chard aplenty. Is anyone donating to the homeless shelters? I am sure that many of us
will have surpluses at times this summer.
Looking forward to the next Organic Gardening Class
series, I am open to hearing ideas about changing the structure, perhaps to an organic gardening club.
It has been a whole lot of work. The series has been wonderful, but it takes too much time and energy for me to manage with
the current structure. So please e-mail your suggestions for how we can continue the program and not burn me out. Should we
charge less? Charge more? If you would like to come to a meeting to discuss this, let me know.
It
is not too late to plant zucchini and cucumbers and beans. Planting now means harvesting in September, which can
be ideal weather for beans and cukes. If you don't already have any, get some Nantes carrot seed to sow in August. Come to
class to hear how to grow the sweetest carrots of the year.
see you in class,
David Grau
Valley Oak Tool Company
P.O.
Box 301
Chico CA 95927
telephone 530-342-6188
